Indoor Composting With NatureMill (w/Video)

Apr 22, 2009 by Miranda Marquit

Indoor composting made simple.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Many people throw out organic food waste. When I do this, I feel vaguely guilty, knowing I should probably compost it for my backyard garden. However, last time we tried to compost, the neighbors got upset. Composting works well in rural neighborhoods, but in a subdivision, your friends tend to notice the smell. Which is why it's very exciting that a new gadget has been introduced: NatureMill is a robot that composts your food indoors.

You can put any organic food waste into this indoor composting machine, and over the course of two weeks, it becomes compost that you can spread onto your garden plot. It can handle up to five pounds of food per day. Discover Magazine points out that the NatureMill composter can actually save about two tons of waste from mucking up landfills over the course of its use, and describes how the machine works:

"The top chamber decomposes the food as the microbes heat up the mush until the waste has fully fermented. It's then dumped into a lower bin. The nitrogen-rich soil is left to dry until it is ready to be poured into a garden. A carbon-filter eliminates (most of) the odor, but the cultures in the compost produce a slight mushroom-y smell. A fan brings in air to feed the cultures with oxygen so they can consume the waste quickly."

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NatureMill does cost about $400, however. But for someone like me, who has a garden, I think it would be worth it. Think of what I would save in manure costs! Besides, indoor composting has the potential to provide me with the lovely smug feeling you feel when you are doing what you can for the environment. You know -- it's that same feeling you get when you drive a Prius...

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